Voters as ‘cougars’?

Prezza. The unacceptable face of politics?(Click for pic credit)

It seems that Madonna isn’t the only one who is taking an interest in attractive young men. The voters seem to be following suit as well with all of the political headlines being made by younger men.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is brutal way that the Lib-Dems ditched Menzies Campbell last year, but the not-bad-looking forty-something does seem to be one of the leitmotifs of modern politics

Ming’s replacement, Nick Clegg certainly seems to be aware of the issue, according to his Tory rival Ed Vaizey:

“Nick’s a lovely guy but he’s terribly vain. For the entire trip he harped on about how he was number one in a Sky poll of ‘Most Fanciable MPs’ and that I was only number nine. We shared an igloo and the intimate, bonding evening chat was based on how good-looking he is. I was referred to only by my fanciability ranking of number nine,” Vaizey says.”

Apparently, Bill Clinton was the original butt of the jibe about politics being ’showbusiness for ugly people.’ Here’s a ‘tale-of-the-tape’ comparison between US presidential candidates in recent years and there certainly seems to point to the conclusion that it’s very hard to win a Presidential race if you are bald (good quote: “Ford wasn’t elected. And Dick Cheney wasn’t technically president.”)

The standards in the USA may be somewhat higher than those that apply here in the UK and this is surely a good thing from our point of view?

Surely it speaks of a more mature sensible polity?

Chris Dillow (admittedly with tongue slightly in cheek) thinks the opposite. That it may be good for democracy that voters tend to prefer photogenic candidates. Here’s a brief sample of his reasoning:

“Good-looking people tend to be more confident. This might be desirable in a politician. It might help project one’s country better on the “global stage”, or help your government drive better bargains in international negotiations.”

I’ve left a few questions about his conclusions in his comments, but I’d add another observation: That there is a correlation between physical attractiveness combined with relative youth and the relative competitiveness of an election.

So what does this mean for local democracy? Well take, for instance, Northern Ireland – where I spend a good deal of my time currently. Here’s Conall revealing that there is an unusually large generation gap between Norn Irn’s MLAs and the electorate. Northern Ireland also has an unusually idiotic electoral system in which party selection is the key factor.

Similarly, in the UK, local government elections result in much older candidates. The UK Local Government Association conducts the occasional Councillor Census, and here are the top-lines from the last one:

• Most councillors (68.4 per cent) were male, 30.8 per cent were female (0.8 per cent did not respond). The proportion of female councillors has increased from 27.8 per cent in 1997.
• The average age of councillors has increased from 55.4 years in 1997 to 58.8 years in 2008.
• 96.6 per cent of councillors were white and 3.4 per cent came from an ethnic minority background.

While one could rightly take offence at the direct implication that old = ugly, one has to admit that the combination of physical appearance and age of councillors provides something of a barometer indicating the vitality of the electoral process there. And UK local elections are probably Exhibit A if you want to prove that British Democracy is on the ropes, isn’t it?

There’s another post that needs to be written asking why attractive young men are preferred in fiercely contested elections. If beauty is a factor, why don’t attractive women rival the Camerons, Cleggs, Obamas and Blairs?

I’ll try and post on that soonish, but for now, I think that all of this points to a possible conclusion that …

• highly contested elections always result in attractive young men candidates
• highly contested elections are better than the alternative
• pretty-boys at the top of politics is, ergo, a good thing

It’s a controversial conclusion to say that we will know that local democracy has been fixed when all of the councillors are handsome young men, but using it will get you into a lively argument – so go for it!

One last thing: There were fears that Barack Obama wouldn’t get elected because of racial prejudice. Thankfully, it didn’t capsize his campaign. Better still, it may not have even resulted in any net loss of votes. Perhaps some black people or non-black anti-racists who wouldn’t normally have turned out for a white Democrat actually voted for Barack? This factor may even had outweighed the people who didn’t vote Democrat primarily on racist grounds.

Who knows? But whatever your racial prejudices, it’s hard to deny that Barack Obama is a good looking man. Contrast this with Neil Kinnock. Labour may not have lost in 1992 entirely because of the ginger-factor, but it’s widely thought to have contributed. Did Kinnock benefit from a ‘ginger solidarity’ to compensate for anti-ginger prejudices? I doubt it. So maybe it’s less a question of attractiveness than one of solidarity. As a fairly unappealing 40-something, I’m not actively looking for people who look like me to vote for.

All of that said, no views of attractiveness are universal. There’s one person I recall who was widely perceived to be unattractive and ginger who seemed to retain a certain appeal in some quarters.